Language Awareness : Readings for College Writers

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An immediately and universally relevant subject, language is the ideal theme to explore in a composition course.Language Awarenesscollects contemporary and classic readings about language that not only make students more aware of its uses and more capable of analyzing its effects, but also help them to deploy language more effectively in their own writing.

ALFRED ROSA and PAUL ESCHHOLZ are Professor Emeriti of English at the University of Vermont. They have collaborated on a number of best-selling texts for Bedford/St. Martin's, including Models for Writers: Short Essays for Composition, Ninth Edition (2007), Subject/Strategies, Eleventh Edition (2008), and Language: Introductory Readings, Seventh Edition (2008).

VIRGINIA CLARK was a professor of English at the University of Vermont and served as chair of the English department. With Paul Eschholz and Alfred Rosa, she is also the author of Language: Introductory Readings, Seventh Edition (2008).

Reading Critically

Writing in College and Beyond

1. Coming to an Awareness of Language

Discovering Language

Malcolm X, Coming to an Awareness of Language

Helen Keller, The Day Language Came into My Life

David Raymond, On Being 17, Bright, and Unable to Read

+ Henry Louis Gates Jr., What’s in a Name?

+ Tom Rosenberg, Changing My Name after Sixty Years

Language Matters

Robert MacNeil, English Belongs to Everybody

** Stephen Pinker, Words Don’t Mean What They Mean

Susanne K. Langer, Language and Thought

Paul Roberts, A Brief History of English

2. Writers on Writing

Writing in College and Beyond

Maxine Hairston, What Happens When People Write?

Linda Flower, Writing for an Audience

Anne Lamott, Shitty First Drafts

Donald M. Murray, The Maker’sEye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts

** Gerald Graff, How to Write an Argument

Editing: Getting It Right

William Zinsser, Simplicity

** Gregory Pence, Let’s Think Outside the Box of Bad Clichés

+** Charles R. Lawson, It’s Academic, or Is It?

+** Patricia T. O’Connor, Like I Said, Don’t Worry

3. Politics, Propaganda, and Doublespeak

Language that Manipulates

Donna Woolfolk Cross, Propaganda: How Not to Be Bamboozled

George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

William Lutz, The World of Doublespeak

** Sissela Bok, The Burden of Deceit in Public Life

Making a Difference: Using Language Responsibly

Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream

Sojourner Truth, And Ain’t I a Woman

** Al Gore, Time to Make Peace with the Planet: 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace Lecture